


the paint cracks when the water leaks

by cashewdani



Category: Crashing (UK TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 13:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8287834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashewdani/pseuds/cashewdani
Summary: Kate misses mood lighting.  She misses candles.  Misses not having to see someone at 4:12 in the am when she just really needs a piss.
   Saving up for a house with Anthony has never seemed more pertinent or more stupid.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in months but watching Kate and Sam in the background of scenes has fully turned on my full wretch potential as though I never stopped.

Hazily, the hallways blue and echoing, Kate thinks about not having tea during Bake Off any more, how her socks’ little rubber nubs are making walking really hard, and that video she saw online ages ago about the penguin who wears a backpack.

It’s past four and she feels heavy and weird. Old, sort of, because she didn’t used to have to wake up and use the loo in the middle of the night. Like she’s already a nan and didn’t even realize it was happening.

She turns the corner and squints, pushes herself back into the shadows just a tad, because there’s already a light on in the washroom, harsh and fluorescent.

Kate misses mood lighting. She misses candles. Misses not having to see someone at 4:12 in the am when she just really needs a piss.

Saving up for a house with Anthony has never seemed more pertinent or more stupid.

When she crosses the threshold, resisting the urge to shield her eyes with the toilet roll in her hand, she at first doesn’t think anyone’s in here at all. That someone just left the lights blazing and the flare of frustration that she’s the only responsible person in this whole ridiculous place ignites almost immediately. But then she sees Sam tucked in the corner, poking at one of those houseplants that keep sprouting up all over the floor.

He’s not wearing a shirt, and she’s sure he must be high with how much concentration he’s paying to way his finger makes contact with a leaf. She realizes she’s been watching him for a little too long right when he must get the same impression.

“Hi, Swiss roll,” he says, a little tweak upwards of his lips as he quickly glances away from the fern, only to return his focus with just as much speed.

She asks, “You alright?” and he nods.

It’s not until she’s sitting on the toilet that she realizes there are maybe more questions she should have followed up with, and not just why he called her that.

She flushes and washes her hands, and he’s still just sitting there.

“Sam, look at me,” she requests, something telling her to, that weird fix-it part of herself tingling. He just needs to sleep it off, she’s reassuring, he’s fine, until he turns the rest of his face towards her. “Oh, Sam,” she breathes, quietly, and she feels like a nan again, as the urge to cry snakes it’s way up her throat.

There’s blood and bits of grass and a smear of mud on his cheek that makes her wonder what Sam was like when he was little for just a moment. He blinks at her, perplexed. “What?”

“Did you fall?” she asks.

“Why?” 

She gestures vaguely at her own head, not wanting to say out loud what she’s seeing, and he with much more care than she’d think he was capable of right now, stands and looks at his reflection in one of the mirrors. “Oh.”

It’s then that she notices his shirt is wrapped around his far hand. That some parts of the black fabric look wetter and darker than others. “Did you cut yourself on something?”

He glances down at it, almost like he’s realizing it’s still attached to him. He’s so obviously drunk he’s making her feel drunk too. “That’s where the blood’s from,” he says, like it’s a conclusion. “I’m alright. My head’s alright.”

Kate asks, “Can I see?” without knowing she was going to, but he makes no move to answer or unwind the shirt. She takes a few steps closer, and he smells like vodka and earth and a little bit still somehow of whatever fancy cologne he douses himself in on a Saturday night. He’s still looking at his attempt at first aid while she says, “I’m going to look.”

Under the shirt are all four of his knuckles, puffy and scraped and angry looking, but no longer bleeding much. There’s a chunk gouged out of the ones in the middle, and she wonders what he hit. “Does it hurt?”

He looks at her then, and there’s too many emotions on his face for her to sort them out before he goes somewhere else again. “I’m alright,” he repeats, and it makes her feel a little more unsettled each time.

“Why don’t you have a seat, just there on the sink, there we are,” she says, turning him, “and I’ll help you get cleaned up, sound good?”

He makes a sound she takes as an affirmative while she looks through what’s been carelessly left behind by their other neighbors. There’s a bottle of gardenia scented Herbal Essences by the bin with just a squirt left in it that’ll have to do. Back in her room she has plasters and wound wash but also Anthony and she’s too far from real and awake to explain what’s going on.

She folds over some squares of her loo roll and dampens them under the spray of the sink. They don't mention things like this when you apply to be a guardian. She starts with his face, passing the wet tissue over the unclean spots, and he watches her the whole time. Staring right into her eyes. It's intimate.

“Kate. She fixes everything around here,” he says, as she swipes at a stubborn streak near his temple. His face going soft and dreamy. 

It’s dark out and it’s late and she’s cleaning blood off someone who stares at her bum far too often, and she wishes she could fix everything. Isn’t sure if she settles for fixing the little things because she can’t tackle the big ones.

“Let’s do that hand then,” she says when she can't look at him any more. Instead of _I don’t know if I’m really in love with Anthony and It would be really nice to come again._. “Alright?”

He takes a sharp inhale of breath, then nods while she turns on the sink again and checks the temperature with her fingertips. “I’m sorry,” she says before grabbing his wrist and forcing his hand under the spray. He hisses and winces a little but lets her hold it there, even when she adds that last bit of shampoo and tries to rinse it as quickly and gently as she can. When there’s no more suds and the water’s clear, she lets him pull it away and cradle it against his chest. He looks young again, so young, even as his fingers graze his abs, and it starts a confusing twist in her stomach.

There’s not much left of the toilet roll, but she takes what’s there and wraps it over his knuckles. “Like a mummy,” she tells him, and she kind of means both him and her. It's so ridiculous but he nods. And then she’s not sure what to do because there’s no steps left to this procedure. “Do you need help getting to bed?”

And here’s where he should say, _I’d love to get you into bed_ or something of the like, but he just says, “No, Kate, you’ve done enough.” He slips off from the edge of the sink, grasping at the edge with his good hand as he stumbles a little on the dismount. “Go, I’m alright.”

Alright, again, and she feels the slightest bit sick while she heads toward the door anyway. And just when she’s about to step outside, head back to the blue hallways and Anthony snoring in his sleep, he says her name.

And then…

“My dad died.”

She turns, and he’s moved closer while she was walking, and she gets the strongest urge to kiss him. That’s her reaction to broken people. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. And for the smallest of moments, she thinks he might want to kiss her too.

But instead, he says, “Fuck off, Kate,” brushing past, and she watches his back retreat down the hall.

At her room, she thinks she means to get into bed, but she just sits outside her door and Anthony doesn’t come looking for her until he wakes up any way.


End file.
